Dungeons and Dragon Princes
by Unsubstantiated Assertion
Summary: After striking up an unlikely friendship with Rayla, the new student at Katolis Preparatory School, Callum invites her to play Dungeons & Dragons with his brother and other friends. Rayla has not played a tabletop RPG before, and takes an unconventional approach to it. For Callum, Ezran, Claudia, and Soren, it will be a game session they'll never forget.
1. Chapter 1

_**I know its very belated but here's my celebratory season three fanfic. I felt that, since my first story was an "incorrect fandom quotes" style parody/homage to Unforgotten Realms, this one should be too. Its ended up diverging much more from the source than Into the Well did, to the point that only a few stretches of dialogue are based on UR.**_

* * *

Normally, being the stepson of the principal of Katolis Preparatory School offered Callum no favors. While the other kids called him and his half-brother Ezran "the princes of Katolis Prep," it usually just meant extra work and extra pressure. Extra scrutiny. Extra high expectations to do one's academic best. And always being the ones who Harrow would turn to for help with students "on a peer's level." Usually it led to frustration or boredom on Callum's part. But this time things had worked out quite differently.

Last week Harrow called Callum into his office with a request, he was to shadow a new student named Rayla.

"She and her family just moved here from Scotland," Harrow explained, "and she's not adjusting well. I'd like you to show her around. Let her know that she's welcome at Katolis Prep and doesn't need to lash out."

It wasn't the first time Harrow asked something like this of Callum. It was the first time he and the troubled student actually hit it off. After a rather tense first meeting that involved Rayla chasing him down a hallway, they had, against all odds, struck up an near instant friendship. Now as they met up after their final classes for the day, Callum decided she was enough of a friend to make an offer he'd never expected to make for anyone else.

"So," Callum began, "my brother Ezran, and some other friends-"

"Ya have other friends?" Rayla teased.

Callum nudged her in the side in a way he hoped came across as playful. Truth was, Rayla was more right than she knew. His other friends, Claudia and Soren, were his next door neighbors. Their dad was best friends with his stepdad. Callum had never needed to actually _make_ friends with them, he'd known them almost his entire life. Rayla was the first time he'd gone out and made a friend all on his own, well with significant help from Harrow. This was uncharted territory for the boy, and he hoped he wouldn't screw things up.

"Anyway, each Friday we all get together to play _Dungeons & Dragons_, and... I was wondering if maybe you'd like to, you know, play a session with us? I'm the DM, the dungeon master. We're starting a new campaign tonight so it'd be the perfect place to jump in!" He smiled a little too enthusiastically.

"Well," Rayla's hands fidgeted while she tried to think of how to best word her answer, "I'm not really into tha' kind of stuff."

"Oh, sure. I understand," Callum tried to hide his disappointment. He should have expected this, Rayla was far too cool, too sporty to be interested.

"Buuuuuut," Rayla held up her index finger, "the internet's out at my house, forecast says its goin' to rain, the mall is closed, there are no good movies out, and I lost my soccer ball... so yeah, I guess I could give it a try." She smiled.

Callum's eyes lit up. "That's great! Trust me, it's more fun than it sounds."

"I'll take yer word for it."

"It's at my house at five. I'll see you then?"

Rayla nodded.

"Prepare yourself. Because we're going to... Get. Our. Quest on!"

They both paused at Callum's outburst.

"That sounded a lot dumber than it did in my head."

"Yep."

* * *

The dining room had table had been re-purposed. A stack of blank character sheets, generic figurines, a handful of twenty sided dice, and an instructional manual were placed at the head of the table where Callum sat. To his left was Ezran, who had placed Bait, his pet blue-tongued skink, on the table insisting that he needed to be included in the game too. To Callum's right sat Rayla, and at the other end of the table was Soren on the right, and an empty seat on the left.

"Sorry, Claudia's running late. But its gonna be worth it," Soren leaned forward and winked.

As if on queue, Claudia spun into the room with a cry of "Ta-da!" She stopped just before the table and posed with her arms spread wide. Claudia had dyed the tips of her hair purple, and was wearing intricate black robes straight out of a renaissance fair.

Rayla stared at the other girl, mouth agape. "Wha'?"

"I'm in character," Claudia explained. "For this campaign, I'm gonna be," she wiggled her fingers, "a daaaark mage!" She took her place at the table beside Soren and sat down.

"Great work as usual, Clauds," Callum gave her a thumbs up.

Ezran turned to the still dumbfounded Rayla. "She does this all the time. You should have seen the last campaign we did, when her character was a troll."

"On that note, we should get our characters ready," Callum passed character sheets and pencils around to everyone. While the others go to work, Rayla stared at her character sheet, trying to make heads or tails of it.

Noticing her confusion, Callum spoke up. "First, just pick a race and class." He stole a glance at the other's half-finished character sheets. "Looks like they're all picking humans, so why don't you be an elf?"

"Sure," Rayla shrugged.

"And a class."

"Gym! No, wait, history! No, wait. Which one has fewer push-ups?" Rayla could barely finish her sentence before dissolving into giggles.

"Character class. Be serious," Callum tried his best to frown and not crack a smile.

"Alright fine. I'll be one of those sneaky stabby types."

"So a rogue. Alright, while I roll your stats, you draw your character in this box," he pointed to an empty square space on Rayla's character sheet.

"Wha'? I can't draw!"

"It doesn't have to be perfect. Just draw something that gets across the idea of what you want your character to-"

"Done!" Rayla proudly held up her character sheet, where a crudely drawn figure had been scribbled.

Callum squinted at the drawing. "What's that?"

"Tha's me."

"What's that on your head?"

"My horns."

"Elves don't have horns."

"Yes they do. Also, they've only got four fingers on each hand."

"Are you sure you're not getting elves mixed up with something else? Tieflings, maybe? Because elves do not-"

"How do ya know? Have ya ever seen an elf?"

Callum sighed. "Bypassing the obvious question and rebuttal about how that implies you have seen one, all you need to do now is give your character a name."

Rayla stroked her chin. "How about... Rayla?"

Callum slow-clapped. "Wow, Rayla, how original. Just wow."

"Wait," Soren stood up in shock. "We can just name our characters our names?! I'm naming my warrior Soren then. It's so hard to remember who's character is who's with all these fantasy nerd names."

"Says the guy playing a fantasy nerd game," Claudia rolled her eyes at her brother.

"We should all use our names," Ezran suggested. "It'll be like our characters are actually us in the game's world. What do you think, Bait?" He patted the lizard in question on the head. Bait gave no response other than to lick his left eye with his namesake blue tongue. "Bait agrees with me."

"Okay, fine. We're all ourselves," Callum pinched the bridge of his nose. "Now let's begin. I've made my own homebrew setting for this campaign. I'll set the mood."

Callum cleared his throat. He spoke in his best attempt at a mysterious, deep voice. "Long ago, Xadia was one land-"

"Wha' are ya doin' with yer voice?" Rayla interrupted.

"I'm speaking in character."

"As who?"

"That's a spoiler."

"The narrator did it?" Soren asked.

"Did what?" Callum stared at him, now confused at where this was going.

"If its a spoiler, then that means the narrator must have done the murder."

"M-Murder? Why would you assume- This isn't _Clue_, Soren."

"Yeah," Ezran said. "We're not playing that until next Sunday."

"As I was saying," Callum took a deep breath and readied himself to do the mysterious, deep voice again. "Long ago, Xadia was one land..."

* * *

"The unlikely trio of Princes Callum and Ezran, and the elven assassin Rayla have escaped the castle and entered the forested outskirts of Katolis, the egg of the Dragon Prince in tow as they race against the clock."

"Don't forget the noble hero Bait the glow-toad!" Ezran held up Bait the skink.

"Wait a second, you're staying with them, Callum?" Claudia asked.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?"

"I thought that was just a tutorial thing. You can't have a character and be the dungeon master. That's cheating."

"Yes, but this is their first big quest, so I don't think Ez and Rayla are smart enough to do this by themselves," Callum smirked and Ezran blew him a raspberry.

"Not smart enough!? I have an intelligence of..." Rayla shuffled through the heap of papers that had gathered in the center of the table. Seconds passed. Soren started to drum his fingers on the table. Rayla kept searching through the papers. "...twelve, dummy! Wha's yers?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Victory by forfeit!" Rayla puffed out her chest and put her hands on her hips.

"Can I continue the story now?"

"Wait, I wanna do some stuff. As an elf, I know forests like the back of my four fingered hand. 'Cause tha's definitely how many fingers elves have."

"Have I just missed some big streaming show or video game with elves that look like that?"

Rayla rubbed her hands together. "Okay. I search for traps." She grabbed a twenty sided die.

Callum stared at her. "Why? We're standing in a forest, it's not an important enough place for there to be-"

"Ha! I rolled a twenty!" Rayla did a little fist pump.

"Fine. You see no traps."

"But I rolled a twenty, tha' means I should see all the traps."

"You do, you see all _zero_ traps." Callum crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

Rayla noticed she appeared to have touched a nerve, and grinned. "Alright. Then I search for hidden walls."

Callum was flabbergasted. "You are standing outside. There are no hidden walls!"

"Tha's 'cause they're hidden, duh." She reached for the die to roll again.

"You find no hidden walls!" Callum said before Rayla's hand touched the die. "Now can I please continue the story?"

"But I haven't rolled yet."

Claudia slapped her hands against the table, switching everyone's attention to her. "Look, it's really cute watching you two tease and flirt with each other, but I came here to be a dark mage and do spooky dark magic, so we can we get a move on?"

"W-we, we are _not_ flirting with each other!" Callum held up his hands, partially to mask the growing blush on his face.

"I _am_ teasin' him," Rayla added, a bit defensively.

Ezran smiled like the cat who swallowed the canary as he watched this all unfold. This was going to be a very fun campaign.

* * *

_**I'm surprised I haven't seen another real world AU that had Bait be a blue-tongued skink. Just look at some of their color morphs, its too perfect!**_

_**I thought about maybe using their voice actor's names for the "real" people and have the TDP character names be their obvious self-inserts in the game but that seemed kind of creepy, like I was writing about the real voice actors in a vastly different relationship and age group. So instead I came up with the idea of Soren not wanting to remember everyone's made up names. It allowed for a twist on an Unforgotten Realms inspired bit and seemed like a fun vaguely in-character solution.**_


	2. Bonus Side Story Gaiden

**_So I noticed that the Rayllum month/Birthday Bash/thing 2020 for today is "AU" and I remembered I had this fun AU I'd considered doing more with in the past. So here's a tiny extra chapter that's all original content, no Unforgotten Realms parody this time! Technically there isn't any real Rayllum content but it I wanted to revisit this AU and this was a good excuse._**

* * *

After two hours slogging through the snowy mountains of Katolis and Soren's complaints that there wasn't enough 'action,' followed by Callum's addressing this criticism with a huge battle against a leech that Soren didn't get to take part in, the kids called it a night on their campaign. They sat around the dining room table, eating some leftover pizza and just hanging out until it was time for Rayla, Soren, and Claudia to go home. A meandering discussions none of them could remember the start of had somehow led to them using their leftover twenty-sided dice for another game. One much simpler, but with enormously higher stakes. Enormously high to three teenagers and a ten year old, at least.

"Okay," Claudia said, "whoever rolls the lowest number has to reveal their deepest..." she paused menacingly, "darkest..." another pause for effect, "secret!" She cackled and accidentally tossed her d20 in the air. When it clacked against the table Claudia broke from her reverie and hastily added "That wasn't my roll. That didn't count!"

Callum frowned. "I think you're taking this dark mage thing a little too seriously."

"Scared that you'll lose?" Claudia taunted.

"No!"

"I'm not scared, 'cause I'm goin' to win," Rayla boasted. "I don't know if ya've noticed, but I seem to have a natural skill for rolling these thingies." Despite being completely new to the art of tabletop RPGs, Rayla had nearly supernatural good luck with dice rolls.

"I'm not afraid either," Ezran said, "since I don't have any dark secrets."

"Big talk from all of you," Soren leaned forward, "but now its time to put your money where your mouths are. Except that your money is dice and-and I lost the metaphor."

Everyone rolled. The five inspected their dice with baited breath.

"Oh thank goodness!" Callum sighed and slumped back in his chair. He'd rolled a perfect twenty.

"What happened to not being scared?" Claudia asked. She'd rolled a fifteen. Lower, but still high enough to suggest she'd be fine herself.

"Darn it!" Soren thumped his fists on the table. "Six."

Claudia leaned over and checked Soren's die. "That's a nine."

Soren smiled. "Hmm. Less darn it."

"I've got a twelve," Ezran cheered. "So its down to Soren and Rayla."

At that moment, the others realized that Rayla had been uncharacteristically quiet since rolling. Everyone looked over to her. Rayla stared down at her d20, mouth agape. She had rolled a one.

"Tha's not possible," Rayla muttered.

"Oh snap!" Soren accompanied his verbal snap with a actual one.

Rayla slowly raised her head. She gulped, then took in a deep breath.

Callum put his hand on Rayla's shoulder. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to. It's just a stupid game."

"No, I made this bed. Now I've gotta lay in it." Rayla spun her index finger through a strand of her white hair. "My darkest secret. My deepest, darkest secret. Is..."

Her pause was longer than any of Claudia's. Anticipation filled the room like a deadly gas. No one could imagine what would come next.

"Tha' this isn't my natural hair color."

Ezran gasped. "No way!"

The other three groaned.

"I know," Callum mock-agreed. "Who would have guessed that Rayla's _white_ hair is dyed?"

Rayla flashed a cocky smiled and crossed her arms over her chest.

"So what is your natural hair color?" Soren asked.

"A secret. And since its not my deepest, darkest one, it'll have to remain tha' way."

"Is it red?"

"Not everyone from Scotland's a ginger. Tha's just a dumb stereotype."

The others narrowed their eyes. "It's also not a 'no,'" Callum smirked.

"Okay fine," Rayla threw up her hands, "I'm a ginger."

Ezran grinned. "That reminds me. One time, Callum told me he thought redheads were really pretty!"

"Ez!"


End file.
